Yesterday, Mohamed and I went to Stormont-Vail hospital here in Topeka for CT scans. As at KU Med, the S-V cancer center is separate from the main hospital complex. Unlike at KU Med, where all the tests take place in one building, here the scans are at the main hospital.
After check-in, we were led to the waiting room for the scans, and I was given two large glasses of water to drink. Here, the water was flavored with Crystal Lite, which was tastier than just the plain water at KU. Mohamed nudged me to look at the couple seated across from us. The woman was wearing a large Trump button. A couple of weeks ago, were at the car wash, and a man was strutting around with a gun in a holster. (Kansas now has both open and concealed carry.) And later, I heard a woman say that she never left home without a gun in her purse. I wondered whether this woman was packing and was unhappy to see my Arab-looking Arab husband. Instead, she was quite friendly and struck up a conversation with us. It didn't take her long to call attention to her Trump button. She likes him, she said, because he's "ornery" just like her. She didn't really seem too impressed with his toughness, though, asking us whether we'd noticed how scared and shaken he was when the man tried to rush the stage in Florida. Luckily, her husband, "a medical miracle," returned from his scans before we could delve more deeply into Trump's character.
My turn came, and I had to explain my medical history to both the nurse who inserted the port that would introduce the contrast for the scan and to the one who administered the scan. The latter was quite incredulous that I was still alive. I must have good support, she said (true), and a good attitude. She asked how I liked Dr. Hashmi, and when I said quite well, she said that a lot of patients didn't like him because he was too direct and didn't sugar-coat things. The CT machine was newer and sleeker than the one at KU Med, though it didn't have the cute icons of an orange head with bloated cheeks for when I was to hold my breath and a green one when I could breathe again.
Unless the results are posted online on MyChart, we won't know them until April 7, when we have our next consultation with Dr. Hashmi. At KU, everything took place on one day--tests and results.
Since I hadn't been able to eat before the scans, we went out for lunch, and then, as always, even though there was nothing difficult about the test, I came home and crashed for over two hours.
Dr. Faulkner, it's good to read your posts. We're back in Thailand (we moved back in May 2014), though I may need to return next year for a visit and to bring my daughter back over there for school. The American political scene is like some demented circus, though over here it's "life under the junta" (since the last coup d'tat in 2014), and it's illegal to criticize the current government. . You and Mohamed take care. 'C'
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